A national ensign flying from the stern of a vessel

Flag states

MMSI flag states, decoded

Use the first three digits of a ship-station MMSI to look up its Maritime Identification Digits (MID): the block the ITU allocated to the registry that issued the number. Then see which vessels our shore-based AIS receivers have heard.

Photo: James Vito / Unsplash · source · Unsplash License

Reading the MID

The leading digit gives you the region at a glance. A large register gets several blocks, which is why some countries appear here with three or four MIDs.

Decode any MMSI: station type, MID and flag →

Learn how to read an MMSI, digit by digit →

Search vessel records by name, MMSI or IMO →

2xx: Europe
3xx: North and Central America, the Caribbean, Greenland
4xx: Asia, including the Middle East
5xx: Oceania and Southeast Asia
6xx: Africa
7xx: South America

When there is no flag

Several MMSI formats put the MID somewhere other than the first three digits — coast stations (00MID…), group calls (0MID…), SAR aircraft (111MID…), aids to navigation (99MID…) and emergency beacons (970/972/974…).

We refuse to show a flag for any of those and name the station type instead. A wrong flag is worse than an honest “this is a navigation buoy”.

Reading an MMSI, digit by digit →

In our store

208 flag states currently represented

Counts are vessels our receivers have heard, not the size of any national register.

All other MID blocks28